“Can storied urn or animated bustBack to its mansion draw the fleeting breath?Can honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?”
“Can storied urn or animated bustBack to its mansion draw the fleeting breath?Can honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?”
“Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion draw the fleeting breath?
Can honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?”
No! the blood of the brave has, no doubt, fertilized the soil of this beautiful valley, while the bodies of heroes, who drew their natal breath on the banks of the Gneiper and the Vistula—the Elbe and the Danube—the Rhine and the Rhone—the Seine and the Tiber, have served to fatten the birds and beasts of prey, as well as the mould of mother-earth—migrating into myriads of new existences, and completing the mysterious circle of theSamian Sage!
When we glance at this infinitessimal speck of human consciousness and identity, surrounded and swallowed up by the countless cycles of other and ephemeral modes of existence, we may well marvel thatman—reasoning man—should be the only creature on this globe who wages eternal war—against his own species! One would think that the span of human life was narrow enough, without abridging or annihilating it by fire, famine, and the sword! War indeed is a game which—
——were their subjects wise,Kingscouldnot play at.
——were their subjects wise,Kingscouldnot play at.
——were their subjects wise,
Kingscouldnot play at.
It is rather singular that, in our days, at least, though monarchs occasionally lose their crowns in these games ofhazard, they rarely part with their heads at the same time.
Three Emperors and a King played one of those fearful games ofhazardin the valley of Culm. From the summit of the Schlossberg the royal Eagles of Austria, Russia, and Prussia beheld, with astonishment, if not dismay, the sudden and unexpected descent through a gorge in the Erzebirgemountains, the fierce, the rapacious, and the ferociousVandamme, at the head of forty thousand Frenchmen, flushed with the victory of Dresden (27th August, 1813) and pouncing on the scattered troops of the allies in the valley, quite unprepared for such an unexpected onslaught! The “Cock of the North,” andheof the Danube, “immediately retired.” Not so the regal bird, with two heads, from the Elbe and the Oder. He clapped his sable wings, as he snuffed the sulphurous fumes from the roaring cannon—directed several movements of the allies below—and presented a wall of steel, to a cloud of cossacks, flying before the enemy—thus compelling them to face their foes.
Meanwhile,Ostermanand his eight thousand Russians slowly and doggedly retreated (fighting) before Vandamme and his forty thousand French, till within two miles of Teplitz, when the Gallic general considered the crowned heads as inevitably within his grasp! Here the Muscovites stopped short—wheeled round—and crossed the narrow valley, like an avenue of knotted oaks that might be borne down or torn up by the furious storm or lightning’s flash, but never would bend. It was in vain that the “ferocious” Vandamme brought up line after line of his men against the northern phalanx. They were repulsed, one after the other, as the basaltic columns of Staffa repel the onsets of the Atlantic surge! As individuals fell in the Russian ranks, the lines instantly closed again, as if by a vital and instinctive movement of the whole body! When the last column of Vandamme had failed to break the Russian phalanx, the furious and disconcerted Frank retreated in his turn, and encamped on the field of Culm for the night. This gave time for the panic-stricken and disordered allies to collect, combine, and arrange for the grand struggle of the coming day. The dawn (30th August) had not yet unveiled the peaks of the surrounding mountains, when all were ready and panting for the sanguinary conflict.
By torch and trumpet soon array’d,Each horseman drew his battle-blade,And furious every charger neigh’d,To join the dreadful revelry.Then flew the steed, to battle driv’n—Then shook the hills, with thunder riven—And louder than the bolts of heaven,Far flash’d the red artillery!
By torch and trumpet soon array’d,Each horseman drew his battle-blade,And furious every charger neigh’d,To join the dreadful revelry.Then flew the steed, to battle driv’n—Then shook the hills, with thunder riven—And louder than the bolts of heaven,Far flash’d the red artillery!
By torch and trumpet soon array’d,Each horseman drew his battle-blade,And furious every charger neigh’d,To join the dreadful revelry.
By torch and trumpet soon array’d,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neigh’d,
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then flew the steed, to battle driv’n—Then shook the hills, with thunder riven—And louder than the bolts of heaven,Far flash’d the red artillery!
Then flew the steed, to battle driv’n—
Then shook the hills, with thunder riven—
And louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flash’d the red artillery!
The allies under Schwartzenburg may now have outnumbered the French under Vandamme, but theirmoralewas depressed by the recent disasters at Dresden, and theirphysiqueexhausted by their almost superhuman exertions in dragging their cannon, baggage, and ammunition over the rugged summits of the Bohemian mountains. On the other hand, the French were elated beyond measure by the recent and successive victories of Lutzen, Botzen, and Dresden—but still more by the star of Napoleon, whichwas now rising, like a Phœnix from the ashes of Moscow, and approaching its second zenith on the banks of the Elbe. Daylight, however, had scarcely enabled the armies to distinguish friend from foe, when they rushed simultaneously into mortal conflict. Vandamme lay between a great crescent of the allies on the West, and the towery ridge of Erzeberg in his rear, and from which he had descended the preceding morning. The “fiery Frank” fought like a tiger encompassed and goaded by hunters—while the “furioushun” successfully repelled his repeated efforts to break the line of the allies, and even drove him nearer and nearer to the mountain behind. The pass of the Erzeberg, through which Vandamme descended into the valley, now presented the only opening by which he could effect his egress out of it. The order for retreat was given; but what was the surprize of the French on entering the defile from below, when they beheld a body of Prussians enter it from above! The surprize and consternation, however, were mutual. Kleist, who, with five or six thousand Prussians, had been wandering among the mountains since the disaster of Dresden, and who was now hurrying to Teplitz to join the allies, was thunderstruck to see the French scrambling up the defile to meet him, and considered his retreat as cut off. Vandamme looked upon himself as in precisely the same predicament. Kleist knew that the French columns were pressing onward in his rear—Vandamme knew full well that the Austro-Prusso-Russian army was close at his heels. The object of each corps in the defile was therefore to cut through its opponent, and escape in the direction of its friends. Under these impressions, they rushed into tumultuous combat, and were soon mingled in inextricable confusion. The officers of one corps were sometimes in the midst of the soldiery of the other, andvice versa—all fighting pell-mell like two hostile mobs, without order or command—individually rather than collectively—often wresting the arms from their opponents, and fighting with the weapons of their enemies! So desperate a struggle on such a precipitous pass, was never, perhaps, witnessed since the days of Leonidas in the Straits of Thermopylæ! The Prussians had the vantage ground, inasmuch as their own weight gave them an increased momentum in rushing down the declivity—the French had greatly the advantage in numbers, both in horse and foot; but Kleist prevailed, and Vandamme and his army were hurled back into the valley below, when the allies closed round them and the Gallic Eagles surrendered!
On the field of Culm the sable wing of destiny threw a shade over the star of Napoleon, which never afterwards regained its splendour, or stayed its downward course, till it sunk in the far Atlantic. On the plains of Marne and Waterloo, indeed,[85]that star emitted some vivid corruscations; but they only tended to exhaust its fire and accelerate its fall!
Full of ruminations on the vicissitudes of human life—the vanity of man’s hopes—and the nothingness of his works—we drove through a highly picturesque valley, at the foot of the last range of the Bohemian mountains, till we suddenly debouched on the silvery Elbe, at the bustling and boating little town of Tetchen. The first object which arrested our attention was a huge pile of white buildings standing on a bold and jutting promontory some seven or eight hundred feet above the right bank of the river, with thrice as many windows in its walls as there were eyes in the head of Argus. Various were our conjectures as to whether the edifice before us was an immense barrack, an overgrown convent, where half the daughters of Bohemia might prepare for another world, or a great factory? Even the oracular authority of the “red-book” could not persuade us that it was a palace. The river at this place is always crowded with boats of all shapes and sizes laden with merchandize—chiefly hewn stone from the rocky banks, and timber from the pine-clad mountains. We had some difficulty in getting the carriage along between a precipice on the left, and the stream on our right, but at length got safely housed in theJosephsbadHotel—“in one of the most romantic situations which the banks of the river Elbe afford.”—Murray.Here we learnt that the great pile of building was actually the palace or castle of Count Thun, and crossing the ferry we scrambled up through a straggling town to the rear of the castle, and then climbed up a road of rock that led to the chateau, and which was steep enough for goats, though the tracks of wheels, worn in the smooth and precipitous stone, shewed that less agile animals than the ibex had dragged their weary way to the summit. The view from the castle is remarkably picturesque, though rather hemmed in by hills, rocks, and mountains—the winding Elbe soon disappearing in the dark ravines ofSaxon Switzerland. Count Thun’s library is, I believe, the great lion of the castle; but as I never could derive much amusement or information from a survey of the backs of books, we returned to our eagle’s nest, the Josephsbad, and slept sound over the murmuring Elbe. There is a chalybeate spring here of some local reputation, and certainly an invalid could not easily select a more romantic spot for the restoration of health than Tetchen.
We embarked in a gondola early in the morning, and immediately entered “Saxon Switzerland,” a tract of country extending from Tetchen to the neighbourhood of Dresden, and perfectly unique in character, bearing little or no resemblance to Switzerland, or to any other country in the world through which I have passed. It has none of the snowy solitudes, the sparkling glaciers, or the majestic altitude of the Alps; but it has a geographical and geological physiognomy, of which there is “nil simile aut secundum” on this globe. The river runs through a gorge, which is, in fact, a gigantic excavation—a huge crevasse—a profound chasm, in therocky bed of an antediluvian ocean, disclosing glimpses of “the world before the flood,” and letting out some of the “secrets of the prison-house.” Whether this ocean-bed was raised from its dark abyss by the agency of subterranean fire, or was left uncovered by the subsidence of the superincumbent sea, may admit of question; but no doubt can be entertained as to the formation of those rocky walls that now rise a thousand feet high on each side of the stream. They are piled, layer over layer, in strata of different thickness and different density—but all as horizontal as the ocean under which they once lay. They were all, therefore, depositions from the sea, and considering that most of these strata are hard enough to form millstones, imagination is lost in the vain attempt to estimate the countless ages that must have rolled away during the deposition and consolidation of even a single stratum—how many millions of years, then, must it have required to form layer over layer, of this immense crust, at the bottom of the ocean, leaving aside the unknown intervals that must have elapsed between the various deposits!! Again, the elevation of the earth, or the subsidence of the waters, so as to produce the complete denudation of this rocky district, could not but occupy ages of ages. In whatever way this long chain of stratifications took place, it is quite evident that it was long subjected to powerful currents. The layers are all grooved and furrowedhorizontally, in the line of the river, and notperpendicularly, as by rains descending along their sides. It is true they are often split perpendicularly and irregularly; but this is quite the work of time and decay—not at all like the horizontal smoothing, the consequence of long-continued watery friction. Some travellers have supposed that the river Elbe has hewn its way through these rocks and formed the huge ravine on the principle—
“Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed sæpe cadendo.”
“Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed sæpe cadendo.”
“Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed sæpe cadendo.”
But as the very summits of the rock (800 feet high) shew the same proofs of horizontal “wear and tear” as the lowest strata, what must have been the state of the surrounding country, when the Elbe was 800 feet above its present level? It was covered with water, and the grooves in the rocks were the effects of currents, not rivers—in other words, they arediluvialand notfluvialphenomena. But the banks of this stream are not the only places here which exhibit proofs and records of a deluge. The neighbouring country, especially on the right bank, and where no rivers exist, is studded with “fragments of an earlier world,” all bearing the same marks of watery attrition, from their highest to their lowest strata. Although many of these “splinter’d pinnacles,” are columnar in shape, they are tabular in construction—all shewing horizontal strata (where they have not tumbled down), and all evincing a greater wear and tear of the interstitial materials between the layers, than of the layers themselves—anotherproof of the lateral and not perpendicular action of the waters by which they were worn smooth.
We descended slowly in our gondola, the day being splendidly clear, and the wind blowing fresh against us, which retarded our progress, but favoured our examination of the infinitely varied scenery in this romantic gorge. At Neidergrund, on the left bank, we were stopped by the last Austrian Douane, for examination of passports; and then continued our descent. At this place, however, there is a huge fragment of rock which must have rolled from the adjacent cliff, at some remote period, but which is now perfectly smooth in every part of its surface, from the friction of the floods. In this stone, there is also a polished excavation, with a narrow door, in which, it is said, a pious hermit once resided. Hence its name—“Monchenstein.” It is worth examining while the tardy Douanier is poring over your passport, and filling unmeaning columns in his musty journals.
A league farther on, where the right bank rises like a wall to a stupendous height, and demonstrating the stratifications with peculiar distinctness, we come to a huge pile of buildings, overhung by massive crags of rocks, and forming a douane, police-station, and hotel. Here we encounter the Saxon Custom-house, where our trunks were opened and examined—an operation which was never once performed by Prussian, Bavarian, or Austrian, during our whole journey. And here I must do the Austrians, who are represented as so veryausterein their police and douanes, the justice to say that, in no part of their dominions did we ever experience the slightest interruption or inconvenience in respect to passports; nor did they ever ask us for the key of a trunk on entering, travelling through, or quitting their territories.
From this place (Herrnskretchen), excursions are often made, by people who have plenty of time on their hands, to the summit of the “Winterberg,” where a very extensive prospect of Saxon Switzerland and the Bohemian ranges is obtained. The mountain prospect is hardly worth the toil of the mountain journey. Better prospects are obtained from two points to be presently noticed, where the view, though not quite so wide, is infinitely more distinct and striking, and where the points themselves possess the highest degree of interest, which the summit of the Winterberg does not. ThePreberchthor, however, a league and a half from Herrnskretchen, is worth seeing. It is a gigantic natural arch of rock, exhibiting well the stratified formation, and looking like the portal of some enchanted castle, being 60 ells (French) in height, the same in breadth, and 30 in depth. The arch itself is 1400 feet and more above the level of the sea. The summit, or key-stone of the arch forms a kind of narrow slanting platform, 30 or 40 feet in length, from which a romantic prospect opens on the view.
The Kuhstall (or cow-house) is another natural arch, where the strataof rock appear to be somewhat bent as they stride over the aperture below. Various other “disjecta membra” of an antediluvian world are scattered about between the Winterberg and Schandau.
We remained but a short time at Schandau; and, after dinner, hired a gondola, where a female rowed manfully against the breeze, assisted by her husband and brother, and in a couple of hours we reached
This is one of the lions of Saxon Switzerland—a kind of jung-frau fortress that has never yielded to shot, shell, or escalade. It is situated on the left bank of the river, near the town of Kœnigstein, from whence we ascended by a long and steep road that required full an hour before we arrived at the gate of this impregnable fortress. The Saxon war minister being governor of Kœnigstein, our passports procured us admission, with an orderly to shew us round. One of the most prominent features of this country is, the projection from its surface of numerous truncated cones of the same kind of stratified rock which compose the banks of the Elbe. They rise almost perpendicularly from plain or hill, to various heights of one hundred to seven or eight hundred feet, with a flat surface on the top, like a sugar-loaf with its upper third cut off. Kœnigstein is one of the largest of these natural forts, and the strongest. It springs from an elevated ground, and is at least fifteen hundred feet above the level of the Elbe that flows at its base. The walls are not columnar, but masses of horizontal strata piled upon one another, precisely like those composing the banks of the river, the highest as well as lowest layers presenting the same horizontal “wear and tear,” produced by the action of long-continued currents of water. The plateau on the summit of this antediluvian citadel occupies a space of two or three acres, which, considering the locality, supports a good deal of vegetation, trees, and fruit. Excavations in the rock serve as bomb-proofs for provisions, ammunition, and military barracks, if assailed. The plateau is encircled by a coronet of cannon and mortars, and in the spaces between the embrasures, immense heaps of stones are piled up, to be hurled on the heads of those who ventured to approach the rocky ramparts of this aerial fortress. Down through the centre of the rock a well is bored to the depth of 1800 feet, and from this source an abundant supply of excellent water is drawn up by a wheel, like a tread-mill, worked, or rather walked, by half a dozen soldiers. In the centre of the plateau there is a circus, where the governor with one of his aide-de-camps was galloping round, for air and exercise.
We made the entire circuit of the ramparts, and from these the most extensive views are taken in every direction, embracing scenery so strange, romantic, and beautiful, that no language can do it justice—nor pencil neither! At its eastern base flows the winding Elbe, and directly opposite,on the other side of the stream, risesLilienstein, about three miles distant from Kœnigstein, and of a precisely similar shape and composition. A German prince, who was also a Polish king, had the courage and dexterity to scale theLilienstein, and was so proud of the exploit, that he commemorated it by an inscription near the place of ascent. Napoleon, in one of his German forays, succeeded, with incredible labour and difficulty, to elevate some guns to the summit of this gigantic rock, in order to batter Kœnigstein, but his labour was lost, for the shot fell short of the sister fortress. But Kœnigstein might have laughed at Bonaparte even if his cannon could have swept the houses from the plateau of the Saxon strong-hold. It would have remained as impregnable as ever. The view from this spot takes in the whole or nearly the whole of Saxon Switzerland, and extends to thirty or forty miles in every direction—from the Winterberg toDresden, the towers of which are plainly visible. All the peculiar rocks in the shape of truncated cones, as well as those masses of pillars and cliffs about the Bastei, are distinctly seen from Kœnigstein. Mr. Russell has the following passage in his work on Germany.
“The striking feature is, that in the bosom of this amphitheatre, a plain of the most varied beauty, huge columnar hills start up at once from the ground, at great distances from each other, overlooking in lonely and solemn grandeur, each its own portion of the domain.They are monuments which the Elbe has left standing to commemorate his triumph over their less hardy kindred.The most remarkable among them are the Lilienstein and Kœnigstein, which tower, nearly in the centre of the plain, to a height of above 1200 feet above the Elbe.”
I have marked a sentence, in italics, because it conveys an erroneous idea. It may be poetical; but it is not philosophical. If the Elbe was the Deluge, or the Deluge was the Elbe, all well. But I think Mr. Russell would hardly contend for this identity. The fact is, that theDelugewore away the softer parts from around Kœnigstein, Lilienstein, and all the other Steins, ten thousand, or, more likely, ten million of years before the Elbe was born! The diminutive stream of the river merely conducted its rills from the mountains through the bottom of the chasm hollowed out by the mighty currents of an antediluvian ocean.
It required two hours to visit the cloud-capt towers and frowning battlements of this impregnable citadel, whose walls were not built by human hands, but constructed beneath the waters of some mighty deep. The magnificent and singular scenery which everywhere bursts on the astonished eye from the cannon-crown’d crest of Kœnigstein, can never be erased from the memory.
We descended from the fortress to the town, tired, hunger’d, but highly gratified by the excursion. Fickle Fortune is not always profuse of her gifts. The feast of the eye this day was purchased by a fast of the stomach. Notwithstanding the care we had taken to order the “huhngebraten,” the “schinken,” the “kartoflen,” and other little matters for dinner, all of which were civilly promised, with a hearty “ja wohl mynheer,” into the bargain; yet, to our mortification, up came the infernal or at least the eternal dish—mutton-chops, composed of old meat pounded into a paste, squeezed into a mould, fried with butter, covered with flour, and pierced with the ribs of some “schaf” that might have been slaughtered the preceding year! Remonstrance was vain, and complaint was unavailing. Dish after dish was returned untouched—and dish after dish of thesame materials, came back again, in other forms! With a sorrowful heart and an empty stomach, I called to mind the first line of Ovid’s Metamorphoses—
“Innova, fert animus,mutatasdicereformas,Corpora.”
“Innova, fert animus,mutatasdicereformas,Corpora.”
“Innova, fert animus,mutatasdicereformas,
Corpora.”
As a forlorn hope, we requested some cheese; when, lo, after a quarter of an hour’s expectation, in came a wedge exhaling such a complication of all horrible and unutterable odours, that we were glad to launch it out of the window among the pigs—and even they scampered off in all directions at the sight, sound, and smell of this unexpected and apparently unwelcome visitor! Good comes out of evil. This last consummation of our miseries fortunately obliterated our appetites as effectually as a fit of sea-sickness in a gale of wind. The beds were as bad as the board, and the smell of the cheese seemed to have called forth myriads of the most minute, agile, and animated beings, who appeared toleapand skip with joy, over our beds and round our dormitory—but whether in search of the savoury “kase,” or bent on more sanguinary depredations, I will not pretend to decide. This I know, that the frolicksome gambols of these black and saltant imps conduced but very little to sleep, notwithstanding the lightness of our supper. Mr. Murray says that theInnat Kœnigstein is “tolerable.” It may be so, but theinmatesare intolerable! I do not think that Horace spent a worse night in the Pontine fens, when he was assailed, on one side by the “mali culices,” and on the other, by the “ranæ palustres.” We had not the “mali culices,” it is true—but we had far worse customers, themali pulices!!In fine, it was the “frogs and flies” of Treponti in Italy,versusthe “fleas and cheese” of Kœnigstein in Germany. I would pit thelatteragainst theformerany Summer’s night of the year!
We left Kœnigstein early on a beautiful morning in our gondola, and in two hours we were housed in New Raden, at the foot of theBastei. Having procured a guide, we commenced a laborious and steep zig-zag ascent towards the summit of the arch-lion of Saxon Switzerland. It required an hour or nearly so, to accomplish this task—each tourniquet ofthe ascent opening out more and more extended and splendid prospects. At length we got into the “regio petrea,” or stony region—sometimes winding round the bases of huge cliffs—sometimes squeezing through narrow fissures of the rock—and at others, crossing profound chasms over slender wooden bridges, or rather foot-paths. When almost despairing of gaining the summit before our strength was exhausted, we suddenly found ourselves on a small but level platform, on the highest pinnacle of the Bastei, and commanding a complete view, not only of the immense mass of splintered rocks around us, but of the whole country in every direction. In all my peregrinations round this globe, I never met with any locality or prospect similar to the one which burst on my astonished sight at this place!
I’ve travers’d many a mountain strand,Abroad and in my native land;—And it has been my fate to tread,Where safety more than pleasure led—But by my Halidome—A scene so rude, so wild as this—Or so sublime in barrenness,Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press,Where’er I chanc’d to roam!
I’ve travers’d many a mountain strand,Abroad and in my native land;—And it has been my fate to tread,Where safety more than pleasure led—But by my Halidome—A scene so rude, so wild as this—Or so sublime in barrenness,Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press,Where’er I chanc’d to roam!
I’ve travers’d many a mountain strand,Abroad and in my native land;—And it has been my fate to tread,Where safety more than pleasure led—But by my Halidome—
I’ve travers’d many a mountain strand,
Abroad and in my native land;—
And it has been my fate to tread,
Where safety more than pleasure led—
But by my Halidome—
A scene so rude, so wild as this—Or so sublime in barrenness,Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press,Where’er I chanc’d to roam!
A scene so rude, so wild as this—
Or so sublime in barrenness,
Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press,
Where’er I chanc’d to roam!
We stood on the verge of a tremendous precipice, eight hundred feet in height, and overhanging the Elbe below. Though its brow is fringed with an iron ballustrade, I observed that very few ventured to look over the frightful bourne,
“Lest the brain turn and the deficient sightTopple down headlong.”
“Lest the brain turn and the deficient sightTopple down headlong.”
“Lest the brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”
In the opposite direction, rises one of the most singular scenes that ever opened on the human eye. The billows of an angry ocean suddenly converted into stone, while agitated by a furious hurricane, might convey some, but a very imperfect, idea of this astonishing locality. The fractured rocks, though all presenting the stratifications so often mentioned, and most of them still horizontal, assume almost every shape and form that imagination bodies forth in the autumnal clouds that range themselves along the western horizon, as the cortege of a setting sun, on a beautiful evening. Pyramids, cliffs, spires, columns, ruins, cupolas, turrets, battlements, castles, colossal statues and fantastic figures—of everything, in short, which a fertile fancy can conjure up in the animate or inanimate world.[86]
After the first emotions of surprize and astonishment have subsided, we begin to ask ourselves what convulsion of Nature could have produced this scene of devastation, destruction, and dislocation? Was it an earthquake?—a volcano?—or adeluge? Coupling this last idea with the acknowledged fact that all these fractured rocks were once a series of level and solid strata at the bottom of the ocean, the remarkable expression in Holy Writ rushed on the mind—“And the fountains of the great deep were broken up.” Whether this indescribable scene of disruption and dilapidation was produced by any one of those three causes, or by all in succession, must for ever remain a secret sealed from human ken,—but it is abundantly evident, from the vast masses of debris along the banks of the river, that the winds and rains are constantly disintegrating the softer materials of this “Mer de Pierres,” and carrying them down towards the stream of the Elbe, which acts its part in conveying them to the bed of the great Northern Ocean, there to form new deposits, preparatory to some other revolution in our planet, which may once more raise the bed of the sea into terra firma—and overwhelm our mountains and plains in unfathomable depths of the vast watery element!
Various paths are formed among the intricacies of the rocks here, and seats formed for contemplating
“Craggs, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurl’d,The fragments of an earlier world.”
“Craggs, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurl’d,The fragments of an earlier world.”
“Craggs, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurl’d,
The fragments of an earlier world.”
And few minds can dwell on such a scene without profound reflections on that AlmightyPowerwhose operations are displayed here on such a stupendous scale.
The external or distant views from the Bastei are still more striking than those from the fortress of Kœnigstein—more varied in their character, and having Kœnigstein itself, and also Lilienstein, as most prominent features in the landscape. The rocky mounds in the same shape as the Lilienstein, which stand up in every direction, are all seats of legendary tales, nearly as numerous as those of the Rhine.
We were not a little surprized to find in this eyrie a very comfortable hotel—the romantic situation of which has no equal in Europe, or in the world. But we were still more astonished to find horses and carriages in the court-yard of the inn! We were, at first, inclined to disbelieve the evidence of our own senses: but soon discovered that the northern approach to the Bastei admits of a good carriage road, so that invalids or weakly tourists may ascend to the very edge of the plateau on the summit of the highest rock, without the slightest fatigue. Near the hotel, there is seen a gigantic excavation in the rock, five times the size of the Coliseum in Rome, and very much in the form of a huge natural amphitheatre, surrounded by a towering rocky wall, of immense height, which wall is crowned by a great variety of grotesque and colossal figures, bearing moreor less resemblance to animals and artificial constructions. Here is a very loud and distinct echo, which adds to the interest of a scene quite unique on the face of this globe.
We descended by the same path by which we ascended, enjoying the prospects from various points, and bidding adieu to the most interesting spot we had ever visited.
Our little gondola floated down the silver Elbe towards Dresden on a beautiful day, the right bank of the river still preserving its superiority of scenery over the left. Indeed I think the former bank little, if at all, inferior to even the best parts of the Rhine—besides the advantage of innumerable white villas, vineyards, gardens, and orchards, scattered from the summit of the hills down to the water’s edge.
Passing the fortified town ofPirnaa on the left, we arrived at the summer residence of the royal family atPillnitz; but too late to avail ourselves of the permission given to foreigners to see, from a contiguous gallery, the regal banquet at dinner-hour. The lions had not only fed, but fled—perhaps to realize our nursery estimate of the felicity attendant on crowns and sceptres—
“TheKingwas in his cabinet, counting out his money:TheQueenwas in the drawing-room, eating bread and honey.”
“TheKingwas in his cabinet, counting out his money:TheQueenwas in the drawing-room, eating bread and honey.”
“TheKingwas in his cabinet, counting out his money:
TheQueenwas in the drawing-room, eating bread and honey.”
I certainly feared that the faithful adhesion of Saxony to the fortunes of Napoleon, though it saved the “galleries” and “green vaults” of Dresden, had not tended to an overflow of the royal treasury—and I was quite sure that the battle of Leipsic and the Congress of Vienna had by no means enlarged the territories of the Saxon Monarch. As to the Queen, Boney’s inordinate love ofbeesmust have greatly thinned the ranks of her majesty’s hives on the sunny banks of the Elbe, and diminished the supply of honey for the use of herself and maids of honour.[87]Be that as it may, I sincerely hope that noSaxonqueen will ever be reduced from bread and honey to bread andcheese—for in that event, her majesty’s case would be hopeless.
We greatly regretted that we had not a glimpse at that magnificent lioness of Pillnitz, the Princess Amelia, sister to the monarch, andPlaywriterto Germany in general. How she, as a Saxon princess, contrived to depict on the stage, “the domestic manners of the Germans,” as Mrs.Jameson very artfully terms her dramas, is beyond my comprehension, unless she imitated the Eastern Princes of former days, who wentincog.among their subjects. Be this as it may, I confess I do not see any delineation of character in these plays that might not be picked up in the library, theatre, and drawing-room, by any clever girl of Princess Amelia’s calibre and talents. There is a clearer insight into domestic manners in one of Horace’s Odes or Satires (vide Sat. VIII.,) than in the whole of the Princess’s plays put together.
We approached this city on a beautiful evening—its numerous spires and domes, its raised terraces, shaded promenades, broad river, and handsome bridge, making a favourable impression on the stranger’s mind. The bridge, though said to be the finest in Germany, would make a sorry figure alongside of our Waterloo—and it bears on its centre arch a memorial that is not likely ever to appear on any bridge that crosses the Thames—the marks of a blow-up by a French General. The memorial, however, is not very complimentary to the Gallic soldiers, who performed the exploit to prevent the allies from running—after them! I wish the bridge regulation over the Elbe was enforced on all bridges, and even streets—viz. that of compelling passengers to take the right-hand side, by which they avoid jostlings or collisions. The new town, on the right bank, is the unfashionable one—the old one, the reverse—though the streets of the latter are narrow, the houses high, and very dull as well as unadorned.
You have scarcely descended from the bridge on the left bank, when you find yourself entangled between a palace, a church, a theatre, and a minister’s huge hotel, or rather bureau. Here I observed what I had hitherto scouted—an “iter ad astra”—aroyal road to heaven. From the windows of the palace a royal arch strides across the street, and enters the Catholic church, high up, near the regal box or pew over the altar!—On the opposite side rises the theatre. ThusReligionsits calmly, but proudly, between Comedy and Carousel; and the same musical corps which “swell the notes of praise” in the solemn anthem of morning mass, fill the air with the dulcet notes of Terpsichore, in the evening Opera. Such easy transitions would excite some remark in holy England—though there is nothing, after all, in these double duties of the vocal train—“vox et pretærea nihil.” But the sight of an English king going every Sunday to mass would astonish his Protestant subjects. Not so in Dresden. The Saxons are just as much Protestants as the British are; yet they take no umbrage at their monarch preferring the Romish to the reformed ritual!! Would that such peaceable and charitable sentiments were universal in the world!
The palace itself is the most strange, straggling, and sombre mass or ratherchaos of state prisons that ever monarch inhabited—unless it isheof the Tartarian regions. It runs up the side of one street—down that of another—cuts a third in two—swallows up a fourth in toto—and then scatters itself into squares, courts, platzes, galleries, museums, &c. from which a stranger would find no small difficulty in extricating himself, except by the aid of Ariadne’s clue, or a rope-yarn longer than any that was ever spun by a Greenwich pensioner. No wonder that their majesties take their annual departure from this gloomy abode most punctually on the first day of May, to enjoy the pure air and romantic prospects of Pillnitz and the Bastei.
The picture-galleries here have procured for Dresden the title of “theFlorenceofGermany.” I think the “Green Vaults,” and “Porcelain Manufactories,” entitle it to the additional appellations of “Royal Toy-shop of Saxony,” and “China-Warehouse of Europe.”
As good Protestants we first went to the cathedral—but as service was over we climbed to the summit of the dome, and there we had a most complete panoramic view of Dresden and the surrounding country, renewing our acquaintance with our old friends Kœnigstein and Lilienstein, which stand proudly forth as gigantic guardians of an enchanted land. The dome of the cathedral is the first spot which a stranger should visit, as it is the only place which spreads everything before him, as on a map, and all in their just proportions and distances. The city of Dresden is by no means extensive, even when including the old and new town; but the surrounding and distant country presents scenery of great variety and beauty. The southern views take in Saxon Switzerland—the northern, the fertile plains and vales that stretch away towards Leipzig and Berlin. It is from this elevated position that the great field of battle between Napoleon and the allies (26th and 27th of August 1814) now smiles in peace and cultivation, instead of being bristled with cannon, and strewed with human sacrifices at the altar of Mars. The fortifications are now levelled to the ground, or converted into beautiful shaded walks, gardens, and groves, that lead out to meet a laughing landscape in every direction. One, and only one, melancholy object arrests the wandering eye of the delighted observer—the monument ofMoreau, on the spot where he fell by the side of the Emperor Alexander. A plain free-stone block commemorates at once, the death of the “hero Moreau,” and the last victory of Napoleon! From that moment, the star of this “child of destiny” began to fade in lustre, and descend from its meridian. The battle of Culm and the disastrous defeat at Leipzig completed the liberation of Germany; whilst the struggles in France and Belgium afterwards, were only the pangs of a dying giant!
It appeared thatFortunehad, in Napoleon’s case, determined to wipe the stain of fickleness from her character; but that she became exhausted by, or, almost ashamed of, pouring incessant favours on a man, whosetalents were as brilliant as his ambition was boundless; and whose philanthropy was so weak that the blood of the whole human race would scarcely have satiated his thirst of power, while the faintest hope of attaining or retaining it remained!—a man without moderation in prosperity, magnanimity in adversity, fidelity in matrimony, philosophy in exile, or religion in death.[88]He expired in the crater of an extinct volcano—a suitable sepulchre for one who had grown up amid revolution, storms, political earthquakes, and the thunders of war. His ashes, which reposed in peace during twenty years, have been exhumed from the grave, and cast like a fire-brand upon a huge pile of the most inflammable and destructive combustibles that were ever amassed for the explosion of another moral volcano!
Paci funesta dies! en tristia erynnis—Atlantiaca pulsa resurgit humo!Ecce alias tœdas Helenæ, atque incendia TrojæOceani, oceani prodita claustra vomunt!
Paci funesta dies! en tristia erynnis—Atlantiaca pulsa resurgit humo!Ecce alias tœdas Helenæ, atque incendia TrojæOceani, oceani prodita claustra vomunt!
Paci funesta dies! en tristia erynnis—
Atlantiaca pulsa resurgit humo!
Ecce alias tœdas Helenæ, atque incendia Trojæ
Oceani, oceani prodita claustra vomunt!
It was for a nation like France, to demolish the altar of the living God (to use the words of Montalivert) to make room for the ashes of a Deist dead!
While memory retraces the page of history, written in blood on the smiling landscape beneath us, the eye rests once more on the pyramidal block which marks the fall of one of the ablest and best children of the revolution. Some dastard, under the cover of night, nearly effaced the word “hero,” and substituted for it that of “traitor.” Man is judged in this world by hisactions—in the next world by hismotives. IfMoreauwarred against his country, he was a traitor—if he warred against a tyrant, who usurped the sceptre and destroyed the liberties of his country, he was apatriot.
Taking a last circumspective view of the splendid prospect around us, we descended from the dome of the cathedral, and bent our steps to the Catholic church, where high mass was about to be celebrated. Here we found a sacred precept at once completely violated. “Whom God has joined let no man separate.” But the wife is here severed from her husband, and the sister from the brother—for what good purpose I am unableto divine. If the two sexes are not allowed to pray together, lest the scandal of assignations should result, the priesthood of Saxony are as little acquainted with human nature as they are with the Aborigines of New Holland.
But what becomes of this regulation, when we see that it only extends to thepit, while in the galleries of this holy opera (for high mass is neither more nor less than a sacred drama), the ladies and gentlemen are allowed to listen and laugh—or peradventure to pray, during the service?
The music here is said to be the best in Germany—and I suppose it must be so. If the object of sacred music be the elevation of the soul to the highest pitch of religious fervor and devotional enthusiasm, the accomplishment of that object may be doubted where a multiplicity of violins and other instruments drown rather than accompany the choir and the organ. There is, however, one exception to this doubt. When, in the performance of the solemnrequiem, and at the words—
Tuba, mirum spargens sonumPer sepulchra regionum,Coget omnes ante thronum—
Tuba, mirum spargens sonumPer sepulchra regionum,Coget omnes ante thronum—
Tuba, mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum,
Coget omnes ante thronum—
the trumpet pours its loud notes along the vaulted roof of some lofty cathedral, which reverberates them on the crowd below, in imitation of the “last trump,” whose awful sounds shall penetrate every grave on this globe—burst the marble cerements of the tomb—and summon their shivering tenants to the foot-stool of their God—the effect is almost magical! And well it may be so. The very idea of such a stupendous and miraculous event, involving the hopes and fears, the rewards and punishments, the eternal peace or endless misery of the whole human race, is sufficiently astounding and overwhelming in itself; but when heightened by the most artful and gorgeous imitation that human ingenuity could invent or effect, the impression is beyond description or even conception!
The picture-galleries are the master-lion of Dresden, and as a mere catalogue of the paintings—not a “catalogue raisonnée”—fills a goodly octavo volume, the reader may be assured that I will not, even if I could, inflict on him a critical notice of this celebrated collection, reiteratedad nauseam, by so many connoisseurs in the art and mystery of the craft. Would that the pictorial critics would keep their unintelligible jargon and puzzling lingo to themselves! How many hundreds and thousands of the visitors of galleries have the cup of enjoyment dashed from their lips, while admiring paintings, by hearing some pert hypercritic condemn them as deficient in “depth of shade,” “breadth of colour,” “truth of tint”—or some arbitrary quality which his brain has engendered to bewilder the uninitiated, and display his own refinement of taste and judgment! Then the host of pseudo-critics, who prick up their ears and catch thefiatsof the connoisseur, become actual pests in the galleries, retailing thedictaoftheir superiors, and scattering doubts and dissentions among the confiding crowd—